I WONDER just how gullible Liberal Democrat Chris Davies MEP thinks we in the North West are? No-one must be fooled into thinking that the plan to introduce "EU wide arrest warrants" is designed solely to track down terrorist suspects.

The European Commission has been planning to introduce a single system of criminal justice for the whole of the EU for several years.

The original pretext was to combat fraud but Romano Prodi, the unelected EU president, has often emphasised that this is part of the plan to set up a single European state.

If our MPs are allowed to debate the measure, which the European Council has backed in principle, they should bear in mind that an EU-wide warrant will be issuable by a "prosecuting judge" and executable by the police in any other EU country with no extradition proceedings.

The suspect could be arrested in Britain on the orders or an Italian judge and transported to Italy for prosecution under Italian law.

They should realise that no country in mainland Europe has habeas corpus (our ancient right of innocent until proven guilty) so people can be kept in prison for a very long period, with no public hearing or obligation on the prosecution to exhibit any evidence. The authorities can get the wrong person and no-one will ever know.

At a seminar organised by the EU commission in Spain in 1997 the question was asked by Torquil Dick Erickson: Why had they adopted the continental inquisitorial system of criminal justice and jettisoned the British system with all its safeguards without even discussing them? There was no reply.

Mr Davies is paid a very great deal of money to sell the EU to us. I just wish that he would give the people of the North West all the relevant facts!

Val Cowell,

NW Press Officer,

UK Independence Party.